Hogan Reviews

The still-weird-its-a-thing Castlevania animated show returns for a second season of “Nocturne”, creating a new story with some of the Castlevania game characters from the 1700s as well as entirely new ones. This time there was less focus on character backstory and more focus on really great action, which given it was essentially the second half of a story makes a lot of sense! Let’s take a look…

At the end of the previous season Richter Belmont, Maria Renard, Annette and Mizrak were saved by the timely arrival of Alucard, who killed the powerful vampire Drolta but otherwise the heroes’ plan was a failure as the “Vampire Messiah” Erzsebet Báthory had gained greater power and nearly plunged the world into eternal night, the group escaping thanks to Maria’s mother Tera sacrificing herself to become a vampire as her once-lover and Maria’s father Abbot Emmanuel watched on. Alucard reveals that he’s been tracking the body of a long-dead Egyptian God called Sekhmet that is the key to all of this and that he believes it to be in Paris, so Richter and Annette agree to leave with him while Maria refuses to go and is in fact peeved at Richter and co. for letting her mother do what she did. They leave Mizrak and soon Juste Belmont in charge of looking after her. This is the set up for the first half, with Richter, Annette and Alucard fighting a few vampires on the way to the Louvre while Maria meets with her Vampiric mother, who has managed to regain control of her mind for the most part (and despite being such a key plot point at the end of Season 1 Erzsebet doesn’t seem to care when she never returns to her…) but Tera begins egging her on to learn the darker arts of their clan.

Stupid sexy Alucard delivers some exposition to our main cast.

Meanwhile, Erzsebet is mourning the loss of Drolta and forces Abbot Emmanuel to put her through is night beast machine, something he says is an impossibility as human corpses who once had God’s souls in them could only become a creature, but low-and-behold Drolta comes back and is more powerful than ever, something that worries powerful South American Vampire Olrox, who begins to have doubts about who he’s keeping company with, trying to tell his lover Mizrak to flee as well, but he refuses. As this is all going on Maria tracks down her father, who begs for forgiveness despite literally trying to sacrifice her a few days ago, before getting killed by Maria summoning a massive demonic dragon, a mysterious grinning shadowy figure taking great pleasure in taking the Abbot’s soul. Maria finds herself unable to control the dark power leading to Juste reawakening his lost magic power to help save her while Tera appears and is able to push the beast back into the abyss. In the aftermath Juste manages to convince Tera to leave Maria alone, and she agrees, leaving Juste and Mizrak to try and help Maria unlearn the dark summoning magic and get back to the more positive other-dimensional creatures.

Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to get someone with Maria’s powers angry…

Richter, Annette and Alucard on the other hand reach the mummy but are attacked by Drolta, who manages to get the better of Alucard in a sky battle and flee with the powerful corpse. While understandably annoyed Richter, Alucard and Annette hatch a plan where the latter heads into a strange astral plain / afterlife dimension of her ancestors and finds the third of three souls that comprises Sekhmet’s power that hasn’t been claimed by Drolta and Erzsebet, all while the Vampire Messiah devours the fleshy parts of the corpse and become the living embodiment of Sekhmet on Earth, then targeting Paris as their next destination…

It’s a fun set up, and there are some good side stories too, like Olrox and his wavering loyalties, and the night creatures having a bit of a rebellion due to opera singing convert Edouard regaining his human memories and a female French army Captain similarly retaining her self after conversion (into the classic Castlevania ice spirit enemy!) Plus Drolta’s backstory as a member of Sekhmet’s cult in 1199 Egypt, getting turned into a Vampire and then spending centuries trying to find the right person to house Sekhmet’s soul was good too, the whole Egyptian horror side of things is often covered in the games in some form or fashion. The stand out though was definitely the animation, especially the fight choreography in the final two episodes.

Overall Thoughts:

It still amazes me that Juste Belmont has a whole fleshed out animation counterpart and Simon Belmont has yet to be seen… Oh well, hooray for Juste!

Castlevania: Nocturne’s second season was a lot like the original show’s second season in that it tied up all the storylines and had some great fighting to boot, only this time the fight choreography was on another level entirely. It’s still amazing this show continues to be a thing while Konami refuse to use the license themselves, but hey, keep it coming I say!

As Annette struggles in the strange dimensional plain the third soul of Sekhmet possesses her body and together with Richter, Maria and Juste they confront Erzsebet while Alucard has a rematch with Drolta, though she is soon side-lined by Olrox, who finally decides to fight against her. We get pretty much a whole two episodes of amazing fighting as they slowly whittle down Erzsebet/Sekhmet’s power, complete with great moments for all the members of the cast, especially Alucard, who taps into his father’s power playbook, and Richter who gets to do some “cool shonen anime poses” as he masters his powers. Eventually Drolta arrives thanks to Olrox breaking off their fight when he sees Mizrak injured and is disappointed to see her great creation on the backfoot.

Alucard and Drolta has a high-speed fight on the streets of Paris.

Drolta mortally wounds Erzsebet and drinks her blood before casting her lifeless body aside, taking in the two souls of Sekhmet herself in a fit of rage, but she is unable to control the power and thanks to Richter getting a power up and forcing her down in place for Annette/Sekhmet Soul #3 to get in close the three souls of Sekhmet are soon reunited and travel back to the afterlife as one, leaving Drolta to die, her plan of some 600-odd years in ruin. Annette is able to survive her ordeals in the afterlife thanks to some Gods and ancestors of her people (always fun to see rarely seen deities get some love!) and wakes in Richter’s arms. Mizrak is turned into a vampire by Olrox as he can bare to see the one he loves die, Richter, Annette and Edouard head to Saint-Domingue to continue that fight while Alucard, Juste and Maria stay behind to see France through its revolution, though Tera is seen in the background with that same sinister, grinning shadow behind her, teasing a Season 3…